I've not managed to track down a copy of Dark Factions yet. And the races, classes and factions in the book are not available for play on the MMO, so I don't know much about them.

Has anyone used this book in their WoW tabletop games? What do you think of the new options the book introduces? Has anyone run a group using the Dark Factions material for PCs? Or is this mostly useful for NPCs?

While the book covers races and factions that aren't playable in WoW (with the exception of the Pandaren), the table of contents contains a slew of names that are familiar to even a lapsed WoW player such as myself. I briefly considered running a WoW tabletop game for my kids, when they were all into the MMO, but ended up sticking with our D&D campaign in the Nentir Vale, at the time. However, this book made it tempting to run a story that wasn't focused on the Alliance-Horde conflict, as it details so many factions (not all of which are "dark"). I never did more than skim the book, but I would imagine it would come in quite handy to further flesh out Azeroth, or to fill in some backstory for the MMO players who enjoy the lore.

Here are the first couple paragraphs from the introduction, which I found helpful to remind me what's in the book.

World of Warcraft: Dark Factions wrote:You might subtitle this book the Independent Player’s Guide, since it does for many independent, dark and neutral factions what the Alliance and Horde Player’s Guides do for the Alliance and Horde. This book details many races that are important in the Warcraft world but are not members of the Alliance or Horde. It also details many factions. . .that have their own motivations,intrigues and agendas. They all possess a degree of separation from the Alliance or Horde, though they are of concern to Alliance and Horde characters.

Specifically, this book is concerned with the following races and factions.Races: Dark Iron dwarves, dragonspawn, murlocs, naga, pandaren, quilboar, satyrs and tuskarr.Factions: The Argent Dawn, the Atal’ai and Hakkari, the Cenarion Circle, the Cult of the Damned, the Dark Horde, the Darkmoon Faire, the Defias Brotherhood, the dragonflights (all fi ve), the Earthen Ring, the Explorers’ League, the Farstriders, the Scarlet Crusade, the Syndicate, the Thorium Brotherhood, the Twilight’s Hammer, the Zandalar troll tribe.

Tim Baker wrote:While the book covers races and factions that aren't playable in WoW (with the exception of the Pandaren), the table of contents contains a slew of names that are familiar to even a lapsed WoW player such as myself. I briefly considered running a WoW tabletop game for my kids, when they were all into the MMO, but ended up sticking with our D&D campaign in the Nentir Vale, at the time. However, this book made it tempting to run a story that wasn't focused on the Alliance-Horde conflict, as it details so many factions (not all of which are "dark"). I never did more than skim the book, but I would imagine it would come in quite handy to further flesh out Azeroth, or to fill in some backstory for the MMO players who enjoy the lore.

The Alliance-Horde conflict is a major part of the MMO, but I guess that some tabletop GMs might want to play out localised conflicts, rather than intercontinental ones.

Tim Baker wrote:Here are the first couple paragraphs from the introduction, which I found helpful to remind me what's in the book.

World of Warcraft: Dark Factions wrote:You might subtitle this book the Independent Player’s Guide, since it does for many independent, dark and neutral factions what the Alliance and Horde Player’s Guides do for the Alliance and Horde. This book details many races that are important in the Warcraft world but are not members of the Alliance or Horde. It also details many factions. . .that have their own motivations,intrigues and agendas. They all possess a degree of separation from the Alliance or Horde, though they are of concern to Alliance and Horde characters.

Specifically, this book is concerned with the following races and factions.Races: Dark Iron dwarves, dragonspawn, murlocs, naga, pandaren, quilboar, satyrs and tuskarr.Factions: The Argent Dawn, the Atal’ai and Hakkari, the Cenarion Circle, the Cult of the Damned, the Dark Horde, the Darkmoon Faire, the Defias Brotherhood, the dragonflights (all fi ve), the Earthen Ring, the Explorers’ League, the Farstriders, the Scarlet Crusade, the Syndicate, the Thorium Brotherhood, the Twilight’s Hammer, the Zandalar troll tribe.

I don't know all of those groups, but I do know some of them.

Dark Iron Dwarves and the Defias Brotherhood are things I'm already interested in. I'm not really a fan of murlocs, but I do know they are important to the campaign setting.

There are MMO quest chains based around these groups, and I wonder if they could be used alongside the Dark Factions book.

Big Mac wrote:There are MMO quest chains based around these groups, and I wonder if they could be used alongside the Dark Factions book.

I think the MMO quest chains would translate well to tabletop games, in most cases. The "kill X beasts" or "gather Y things" portions of those quests wouldn't work as well in a system where combat will take significantly longer to complete, but the important parts of the quest lines could be borrowed.